My name is Elizabeth; most people call me Beth for short. I'd tell you my last name, but I just can't. It would be way too dangerous, both for me and my family. And for Calgiss. Especially for Galgiss. So many people would hate me if they knew what I was - and some of them would hate me enough to act on it, I'm sure. Even by writing this, I know that I'm taking a risk: that if I give just a few too many details by mistake, then some lunatic will track me down and kill me - or worse, that some lunatic will go ahead and kill somebody else while thinking that they're me.
You see, a few years ago, there was a war on this planet like no other. It was a war that few realised was happening, until it was already almost over. It was a war fought almost entirely by five teenagers and an alien, against a species of sentient slugs called yeerks. Yeerks can slip through your ear-canal and into your brain. Once there, they can flatten themselves around the brain and take it over them. Your body becomes theirs to control; your thoughts and memories becomes theirs to see. You becomes theirs to use as they see fit. You become a controller.
And throughout almost all of that war, I was one of them. One of the infested. A human-controller.
Of course, the thing about yeerks is that they can't survive in our heads forever. Every three days, a yeerk needs to leave its host and absorb the nutrients they need to live. Back during the war, this meant a trip to the Yeerk Pool hidden under our town. There, voluntary hosts would go to a nice quiet room with a television and snacks where they could wait for their yeerk to feed; involuntary hosts like myself would instead be tossed into a cage until their Yeerk was ready to come back. There, in the cages, you were finally free to move: free to beg for freedom, free to cry and wail, free to rage at passing controllers, free to do all the other things that involuntary controllers so frequently did.
I didn't do any of those things when I was in the cages, though, and there were three basic reasons for that. The first reason was that I knew it would do me no good. The second reason was that, as far as involuntary hosts went, I was one of the lucky ones. My yeerks had never been cruel, and had all been willing to compromise in exchange for my cooperation - cooperation that I'd been all too willing to give.
The third reason why I never cried or yelled in the cages was that I simply couldn't. Not by the war's end.
Slowly but surely, my ability to control my own body had slipped away. I'd found it harder and harder to make the simplest of motions while locked in the cages and, stupid though it seems now, I barely even thought about it at the time. I was always caged while my yeerk was gone, after all, and I was only caged for a few hours at a time in any case. Why should this one final indignity matter, I thought, after years of being a human-controller? Surely it was only fitting to be helpless without a yeerk, after years of being a perfect slave in exchange for my family's freedom?
And then, all of a sudden, the war ended: the Yeerk Pool was destroyed, the yeerks surrendered, the human-controllers were freed. All of a sudden, my dependancy on yeerks actually mattered. And then, that dependency refused to go away.
No doctor I've been to has ever been able to explain it. I've had so many brain-scans since I was freed, not one of which has revealed anything wrong. As far as I or anyone else could explain, I had outright forgotten how to move. Quite simply, I had been controlled by yeerks for far too long.
Sometimes, I had good days: days where I could actually feed myself, days where I could walk more than a couple of meters before losing my balance and falling. At other times, I had…not so good days: those days where I could let myself be pushed around wheelchair all day and nothing else.
Even now, a year into University, I have days where l barely do anything. On days like that, I can't speak more than a couple of words before my speech deteriorates in incoherent babble; I can neither smile, nor dress myself, nor wash myself.
Or rather: on days like that, I can't do any of those things without a bit of help.
((Let's try this again,)) Calgiss 5631 said. ((I've picked up the ball in your right hand. Can you feel it?))
Calgiss had me lying on my bed, inside the flat I shared with three other students. It was a warm spring afternoon, and my curtains were blowing gently in the incoming breeze. My three housemates were all still in class; for the time being, Calgiss and I were home alone.
((Yeah, I feel it,)) I said. It was a soft rubber stress-ball, provided a couple years back by some psychiatrist whose name I no longer recalled. I thought of squeezing the ball, but my hand remained stubbornly still. ((Calgiss, you still in control?))
((Yes. Sorry,)) my yeerk said. ((I'm giving you your hand now. Try squeezing a few times)).
I took a deep breath, a faint sense of dread lodging into my chest the way it so often did when I tried moving on my own accord. I focused on my hand, trying to remember all the moving parts - God, even in this one hand, there were just so many - and then slowly closed my fingers around the ball.
I squeezed the ball once successfully, and the dread in my chest lightened by just a tiny amount. I eased my grip and then went to squeeze again, only for my hand to remain open; the ball rolled off of my hand and onto the floor below.
I groaned internally - and externally, too. ((Calgiss, can you get that?)) I said. On a good day, I might have been able to get up, bend down and pick it up myself; this day, as it was turning out, was not a good day.
Calgiss wordlessly took over and picked the ball up for me, setting me back up on the bed seconds later. I dropped it again soon afterwards.
((Look, can't we just do this later?)) I said. ((You know, watch a movie or something? This is going nowhere.)) It had been going nowhere for some time, in fact. I seemed to have be going backwards over the past few months, if anything.
I thought back to the days between the end of the war and Calgiss, of which there had been many. It had been two years after the war before I'd made contact with Calgiss, and a further year before I was legally old enough to have them stay in me without declaring it to my parents. At least I'd had some good days back then; I'd had enough good days to actually get through high-school, albeit mainly from a wheelchair, and I'd done that all without Calgiss. How I could have gotten so much worse since then?
((University stress, perhaps?)) Calgiss offered, sensing my thoughts. That was one of the things the last doctor I'd been to had suggested.
((Maybe,)) I said, though honestly I didn't believe it.
We lay in silence for a moment. I knew what Calgiss was thinking, because I was thinking it just then as well: that the doctor in question had made a second, rather more pointed, suggestion with regards to my present state.
((Anyway, movie?)) I asked weakly.
((Beth, maybe he was right,)) Calgiss said. ((Perhaps I should go back to my Pool for a while, and see if that helps you to-))/
((No, Calgiss!))
p((But Beth, that might be what you need to-))/p
p((NO!)) I dared not think about it, being without Calgiss - not while I was like this.
((Beth, please,)) Calgiss said.
((No, Calgiss! No!)) How would I explain my sudden relapse to those around me? How could I explain that I'd been a controller for all this time?
((We'll tell them first,)) Calgiss said. ((I'm sure they'll understand! Then I can-))
((Calgiss, stop! Stop!)) How would anyone ever understand!? Especially my parents, who ever since the war had hated all things Yeerk? Why would Calgiss even suggest such a thing? Why were they doing this to me?
((But we have to tell them some day,)) Calgiss said. ((Beth, they're going to find out, we've talked about this before, we-))
'Why won't you stop!?' I screamed, bolting upright. Calgiss said nothing. 'Why would you leave me like this when I can't - I can't - why would you even think of leaving me now!?' I leapt to my feet and paced around, my head in my hands. 'You had me during the war!' I said. 'You must have known what was happening! You were probably the one who did this! You…YOU DID THIS TO ME AND NOW YOU…you…'
I choked back a sob, my eyes streaming with tears. The fire inside me died, just as abruptly as it had begun. What on Earth had I just said?
'Calgiss,' I said. ' I…'
And then the dread was back - the horrible pangs in my chest that always seemed to come when I tried to be in control. I began to topple over, the moving parts of my body too much for me to cope with.
Calgiss took over my body, stopping my fall. They led me back to my bed and allowed me to flop down, wrapping my arms into a self hug as they did.
((I'm sorry,)) I babbled. ((I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm…))
((Shhhhh…)) my Yeerk went, rocking me slightly from side to side. ((It's okay. Let's just… let's relax, okay?))
((Okay,)) I said.
Calgiss let my body go still. They relaxed my muscles. They made me breathe in long, deep and steady breaths. We must have laid like that for a good half-hour, my arms still loosely folded around me, not a word exchanged between us; neither of us needed words now.
Finally, Calgiss broke the silence. ((So, how about that movie?)) they said.
I'd have blinked in surprise, had I been able ((Shouldn't I do my movement exercises first?)) I said.
Calgiss blinked for me, likewise in surprise - or at least in mock surprise. ((Oh?)) they said. ((I daresay you've already done them. And much more besides, I might add.))
((I have? But when did I - oh,)) I said. Oh.
Just how loud had I been, I wondered, shouting and stomping around like that? And how many moving parts had been involved in my doing so? Thank the Lord, I thought, that my housemates hadn't been around to hear it.
((We really should tell them some time,)) I said. But not right now, I didn't need to add. ((And Calgiss? I'm sorry about what I said.))
((I know,)) they said, hugging me again. ((And I'm sorry that we did this to you.))
Calgiss took me out of my bedroom after that and headed downstairs. And all the while, as Calgiss moved and manipulated our shared body, I couldn't stop beaming inside. I'd moved. I'd moved in so many ways at once, all without thinking about it. And if I'd done it once, then surely I could do it again. Perhaps one day, I would be one gathering drinks and snacks from the kitchen. Perhaps one day, I would the one inserting the DVD into the slot. Perhaps one day, I would be the one sitting us down on the couch for a couple hours of rest and relaxation.
And perhaps one day, my ability to move would never leave me again.